Letter: Windsor Framework is in some ways operationally worse than the Protocol

By Letters

Published 22nd Sep 2023, 06:00 BST

My first thought on reading the joint article by my colleagues Lord Godson and Bew was that they have sadly fallen for the Government spin that the Framework is a major improvement on the Northern Ireland Protocol and hence close to acceptable.

The noble Lords must know it is legally the same. Had the Framework been a new settlement, it would have required both Parliamentary and EU member state approval. It did not.

Northern Ireland still has to live under regulations on the production of goods and trade which are set in Brussels without any democratic input from voters in Northern Ireland. The Windsor Framework retains all of the EU control but the EU has agreed to soften some of the details. It did this because it recognised that in being harsh in the original protocol it risked the Framework being overturned in the proposed 2024 vote or even earlier. If the EU is unhappy, it retains the legal right to return to the original Protocol.

Indeed, the Framework is in some ways operationally worse than the Protocol in that grace periods have been abandoned and the position of small traders is worse than before. The green lanes do not provide as much amelioration as the two Lords might imagine. At least 21 unique fields of information must be provided for each consignment of goods. The cost of using the green lane is prohibitive for anyone other than the largest of exporters. The Stormont brake, falsely offered as a mechanism for Stormont to reject new EU legislation, equally will not work.

The truth is the Framework has cemented in the Irish Sea border.

It has left Northern Ireland subject to foreign laws, made by a foreign legislature and enforced by a foreign court. It has confirmed the breaching of the Acts of Union. It has thus broken the East-West dimension of the Belfast Agreement. And it has done all this without cross community consent, the bedrock of the self-proclaimed peace settlement of 1998.

I understand the Noble Lords’ desire to look forward with optimism, but to forsake the cherished concept of equal citizenship with the rest of the United Kingdom is non-negotiable. I, along with the vast majority of pro-Union people cannot support the push for Stormont to be restored when restoration means acquiescence in the removal of our full rights as British citizens.

Baroness Hoey, Member of the House of Lords and former Chair of the NI Affairs Committee